A/N - I apologize for the late update - I'm still having some problems with my fanfiction account! There will be one more chapter after this one, and I'll post it next week.

By the late afternoon, Rodney had decided that he was officially concerned about Sheppard. He'd started to get worried right about the time that John had accepted Rodney's jacket, and things had only gotten worse from there. Even with the addition of the jacket, Sheppard couldn't seem to stop shivering. His unblackened eye had gone glassy, and his skin was pale enough to make the vicious bruising stand out in vivid detail. When he moved, which wasn't often, he was slow and uncoordinated, and every motion was accompanied by hisses of pain that he apparently thought Rodney couldn't hear. And yet, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary, whenever Rodney asked if he was alright, John assured him that he was.

Rodney was starting to realize that most of what came out of the Major's mouth was complete and utter bullshit.

The breaking point came when John reached for the last of his share of water, fingers trembling so violently that Rodney didn't think he'd even be able to hold onto the glass. His hand didn't stop shaking once he'd grabbed the glass, and he didn't seem to be able to open his mouth very far. As he raised the glass, his hand shook harder, and Rodney watched in dismay as John splashed most of the water onto his shirt, rather than in his mouth.

Sheppard made a soft, wounded sort of sound, and stared miserably down at the empty glass.

"Okay, you're clearly not alright," Rodney said for the hundredth time. He didn't know if John was trying to keep the truth from him to avoid Rodney freaking out, or if it was to make himself feel better, or if he was afraid that admitting he was hurt was some kind of show of weakness. Maybe all three. Even so, if he kept asserting that he was perfectly fine, there was absolutely nothing that Rodney could do to help.

"I a-a-am," John insisted quietly, around his chattering teeth. "J-j-just...m-maybe a b-bit cold."

Rodney's crash course in Sheppard-related subtext had finally taught him that if John admitted to any sort of physical discomfort, it was about a hundred times more serious than he was letting on. If he said that he was a bit cold, then he was probably on the edge of hypothermic. Before Rodney knew what he was going to do, he was on his feet, shouting for the guards.

The guards came running, probably assuming there was some kind of legitimate emergency. By that point, Rodney was standing at the door of the cell, trying to look angry and preparing his best 'I need to speak to the Manager' voice.

"What is it?" one of the guards asked.

"My friend is sick," Rodney said, gesturing at John. "He has a fever, and he's freezing cold. I need...blankets, more water, more food…."

The guards were just staring at him blankly, and Rodney felt genuine anger surge. "What's wrong with you? We don't have time to waste here, people."

"Back away from the door," the guard said harshly.

Rodney, not exactly sure what to expect, did so. He moved towards John, but the guard stopped him with a sharp movement of his hand. Rodney flattened himself against the wall.

The guard slowly opened the door, and made his way to John. The other guard watched from outside, ready to intervene if either of them were to try anything.

The guard bent over John, peering into his face. John had remained silent this whole time, which Rodney thought was a true mark of how terrible he was feeling. John was never silent in the face of this sort of thing. Rodney couldn't even tell for sure if he'd really registered that there was a guard in the cell with him.

The guard reached a hand out.

"Hey!" Rodney said indignantly. "I said he was sick, were you not listening? There's no reason for you to touch him, just...just back off."

"Yeah," John said in a small voice, turning his head away from the guard slightly and squirming backwards into the wall.

The guard caught John's chin in his hand, forcing John to look at him. He tilted John's face up, peering into his eyes. John made a small sound in the back of his throat and went still - Rodney realized that having the guard's fingers on the nasty bruises on his jaw must be excruciating.

The guard dropped John's face, and John's head immediately drooped forward.

"Well?" Rodney demanded.

"We'll bring you the blankets and food," the guard said.

"Good!" Rodney yelled. "You better!"

"You don't get to talk," the guard snarled, and John's head came up slowly as the guard took a half-step toward Rodney.

"McKay," John whispered, then shook his head painfully back and forth. "Don't."

Rodney decided that just this once, he might listen to John. He shut up, raising his hands placatingly, and the guard backed down.

As soon as they were alone, Rodney went to John, who had slumped backwards against the wall and was back to gently shivering.

"Are you okay?" Rodney asked helplessly, knowing that the answer was no and that John was just going to say yes. "Hopefully soon, you'll be warmer…. And you have to eat a little, you've barely eaten anything for the past three days. That can't be helping anything."

"Shouldn've done that, Rodney," John whispered, but Rodney didn't hear the reprimand in his words that he once might have. He could tell that Sheppard was just worried, that he didn't want Rodney to get hurt like he had. Well, tough cookies to him.

"I had to," Rodney told him. "In case you haven't noticed, you're really sick."

John gave a small laugh that turned halfway through into a gasp of pain. Rodney didn't know what was hurting now, his shoulder, his ribs, his nose, his jaw…. There were too many options.

"Yeah," John mumbled softly. "Thanks."

Rodney snorted. "Please. They couldn't say no to an annoyed McKay. You know that stereotype about how Canadians are nice and polite? Well, the McKays are the exception that prove the rule. I pity the retail worker who crosses a McKay…."
He didn't think that John was really listening to him, possibly wasn't even able to listen to him, but John was smiling slightly, and that was enough.

Rodney kept up a steady stream of chatter until the guards returned, carrying a few blankets and another two bowls of the slop. Rodney was starving too, but he didn't have the shaky lightheadedness that heralded a serious blood sugar drop quite yet. He could wait until John was taken care of.

The guards didn't speak to them as they dropped the blankets into the cell, and neither John nor Rodney spoke to them. John's eyes were closed, and Rodney thought that he might have dozed off.

Rodney didn't really want to wake John up, but he thought it was for the best. He shook John's shoulder, and forced him to eat at least ten bites of whatever gross substance the guards had provided them with. Then, he draped the blanket back over John. It eased the shivering some, Rodney thought, but he wished it was doing more.

"You can go to sleep," Rodney said.

"Thanks, Mckay," John said sarcastically. Or at least, Rodney thought it was supposed to be sarcastic. It was getting a little hard to tell with John at this point - his voice was so quiet.

"Tomorrow...things will be better," Rodney said. The words felt foreign in his mouth. He couldn't think of one single time in his entire life that he'd been the voice of encouragement. But John just looked so small. Even though it was a flat out lie, Rodney felt it was the least he could do.

John wasn't sure how long he slept. He thought it was a length of time that was concerning. He thought the last time he'd gotten more than eight hours of sleep in a row was the time he had nearly been killed by an Iratus bug. But John closed his eyes, and when he next opened them...ten hours had gone by? Twelve? He had forgotten to check his watch.

Everything was feeling...worse. John's head felt thick and fuzzy. Even turning his head to look at Rodney sent a bolt of pain from his shoulder to his stomach, and he panted for breath. He was hot, very hot, or maybe he was cold.

He thought that he couldn't stay in this cell much longer. If he did, things...wouldn't be good. He needed Beckett, and a warm bed in the infirmary, not another day in this freezing cell.

"Oh, good you're awake," Rodney said. John heard him rustling off to one side, but he couldn't find the strength to turn his head. He tried to say something to Rodney, confirm that he was, in fact, awake, but all of a sudden his brain didn't seem to be connected to his mouth anymore. He made a small whimpering sound, and that was all he was able to manage. He couldn't even find it in himself to be embarrassed.

Rodney appeared in his field of view. "Oh, hey," he said. "You look terrible."

John wondered if he should try to go to sleep again.

"Hello?" Rodney said. "Earth to Sheppard. Is anyone in there?"

John managed another whimper, then let his eyes slide shut. Being awake was too hard, and he wasn't sure how he was supposed to answer the physicist. He was too sick to figure it out.

"Hey, no, don't go to sleep again," Rodney said sharply, and John felt a hand on his shoulder. It wasn't the bad one, but it didn't seem to matter. Rodney's touch sent a shock of pain through his body, and John gasped softly. Peeling his eyes open, he glared at Rodney with all the strength he could gather.

"There you are," Rodney said, sounding oddly relieved. "Sheppard, I'm...I'm really getting worried. About you."

Rodney was worried, how was that any different than usual? John didn't have any energy left, how was he expected to fix whatever it was McKay was worried over now? And then the end of the sentence worked its way through his fevered brain, and John frowned. Rodney was worried about him, that was...nice, John supposed.

It didn't change anything. John was still too sick, tired, and cold to reassure Rodney that he was okay. He wasn't okay, and if even Rodney could see that, then John wasn't going to deny it any longer. If that meant he was weak, then so be it.

"I'm going to check your shoulder," Rodney told him, and that managed to dispel the last of the sleepy haze John was caught in.

"Don'," John said hastily, pushing himself upright against the wall and ignoring the dizzy swooping in his vision. His shoulder was bad, he knew it was bad, and Rodney looking at it wasn't going to somehow make it less bad.

"Sorry," Rodney replied, and John's next protest devolved into a choking gasp as Rodney reached across him to unzip the jacket, pulled it halfway off, and began to unwind the bandage. Stars swam across his vision, and the sick throbbing in his arm twisted into an all-encompassing bolt of agony as Rodney pulled the blood-stiffened cloth away from the wound.

"Oh god," Rodney muttered. John's breathing turned into a harsh, ragged series of pants as he felt the cold air hit the open wound on his arm, and he whimpered again.

"It's bad," Rodney said, sounding queasy. Despite his better judgement, John summoned the last of his strength and turned his head to his left, peering at his injured arm.

It was bad. The wound was clearly infected, which John had guessed ever since the onset of the fever, but it looked even worse than he'd expected. The entire area around the large gash where the arrow had been was red, inflamed, and puffy, the skin tight and stretched. The wound itself was weeping a horrifying combination of pus and blood, and the edges looked slightly greenish. John felt his stomach twist in nausea, and he gulped, trying to fight the bile back. This was ridiculous, he wasn't the squeamish sort, and he'd seen an infected wound plenty of times.

"God," Rodney whispered, reaching out and touching John's shoulder almost impossibly gently, pain lancing through his arm nonetheless. The wound puckered, more of the vile ooze leaking out, and John's stomach wrenched again. Before he could stop himself, he was coughing up what little food he'd managed to get down onto the cold stone floor, the movement sending shivers of pain throughout his body. He wasn't sure if it was because of the pain or the horrific sight of his wound, but either way, it was utterly mortifying.

"Sheppard!" Rodney yelled, scrambling to his feet and involuntarily backing away. "Warn a guy next time, come on!"

"I-" John wasn't really sure what he could do to remedy the situation at this point, so he just leaned back against the wall. He wiped his mouth with his hand, ignoring the throbbing pain that that movement sent through his injured jaw and nose.

There was a moment where both of them were just breathing, and John wondered if he'd be able to muster the strength to talk again.

"I forgive you," Rodney finally said, voice magnanimous. "You probably didn't know you were going to puke. And I'm sure your arm hurts a lot."

John nodded slightly, even though he didn't remember apologizing. His eyes stayed trained on the floor, but he heard Mckay's footsteps, and then the sound of the scientist settling himself down beside him.

"I think we need to escape," Rodney said bluntly.

"I don't think we can," John rasped. "But Dr. Weir, she might still…."

"We don't have time to wait for Dr. Weir," Rodney said.

"But-"

"Sheppard, if we don't get you real medical care in the next few days, you are going to die. Even if Dr. Weir is coming, which...we still don't have any evidence that she actually is, we don't have time to wait for her. We need to think of a plan."

"Okay," John said sleepily. He wasn't sure exactly what sort of plan he would be able to participate in, but he was down to try.

"What do we know?"

John wasn't sure whether or not the question was rhetorical or not. "Um…."

"The most responsive we've seen the guards was when I told them you were sick," Rodney said. "They really don't want us to die, then they lose all their leverage. There's no way they would ever see a weapon if they killed us."

"Maybe they can give me...somethin'," John said. "And then we don' have to escape."

Rodney shook his head. "No, I don't think that's possible. When they came in here last time, they did believe you were sick. That's why they gave us the blankets and extra food. If they had a way to treat something like this, they would have given us that too. They probably would have given it to us when we first got stuck in here, to be honest. I don't think their medicine is very advanced, and I think even if they wanted to help, there's not much they could do at this point."

"Oh," John said sadly. Even if they did still end up escaping, John knew it would be a hell of a lot easier if he was in better shape.

"And anyways, that's not what we really need. You tried using brute force to escape earlier, and look where it got you. What we really need is comms."

"That or a weapon."

"Sure, Sheppard. That or a weapon."

"Th' vests," John murmured, starting to shiver again. Why was he so cold? That's right, Rodney had unzipped the jacket in order to look at his arm. He hadn't rebandaged it, John didn't think, but it wasn't like it could possibly get more infected.

"Right. We need the vests," Rodney answered, making his thinking face. John left him to it, his fingers feeling thick and uncoordinated as he fumbled with the zipper. Finally, he managed to zip the jacket up, unable to hold back a small gasp as he jostled his arm.

Rodney instantly broke off whatever he'd been saying and turned back to him, looking concerned.

"God, I swear, you look worse every time I look at you. The guards should be giving us some food soon, maybe that will help…. It's been awhile since you've eaten, plus-" Rodney cast a slightly horrified look at John's other side- "you just...threw up…."

"Maybe," John whispered, deciding right then and there that there was no way he was putting anything in his mouth. He still felt sick and queasy, and if Rodney was serious about some sort of escape plan, it wouldn't matter if he ate within the next few hours. After that, they'd either be dead or safe.